Top Programme

Cicero Soft Skills Top Programme

The Programme

The Cicero Soft Skills Top Programme is a programme created to train students in high level debating, adjudication, and trainer skills. Support to attend international tournaments and training was provided by Tilburg Law School alumni fund over the last year. Up to 20 students can participate in the trainings within the programme, and a number of these students will also be provided support for visiting international trainings and tournaments. Participants will also be trained in providing trainings themselves; this will create a yearly generation of ”student-trainers” who can give trainings to students throughout the University in the field of soft skills. The programme has been started by Jos Buijvoets, an established name in the debating world and loyal student at Tilburg University.

Success so far

The Cicero Soft Skills Program has so far (last lecture year) sent delegations consisting of about 2-10 people to trainings and tournaments in Oxford, Ljubljana, Lund, Münster, Thessaloniki and Manchester. They have achieved excellent results both nationally and internationally; Naomi Coldenhoff, Alex Panhuizen, Joshua Paas and Jos Buijvoets al managed to reach the top 10 of international tournaments in Manchester, Ljubljana and Leiden. About 32-68 international teams participated in each of these tournaments, which means that former world champions and teams from Oxford and Cambridge were defeated. The success is carried widely, as speakers from the Tilburg University were part of the best 80% of speakers at international tournaments last year; we have now risen to become part of the best 63%. The focus of the program now lies upon the acquisition of trainer skills, so the twenty participants can transfer their gained skills upon other students over the coming year.